


Beyond

by endlesshorizons



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fem!mycroft, Gen, John as Jonas; Mrs. Hudson as the Giver; Sherlock as himself, Kidlock, M/M, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesshorizons/pseuds/endlesshorizons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all twelve years of their lives, John and Sherlock have lived in their quiet, peaceful community, where there is no war, hunger, poverty, or suffering. Nobody, not even Sherlock with his inquiring mind and restless impatience at everyone else, suspect that there may be something more sinister to their perfect world. That is, until John is selected to be something more, unveiling the real price for their apparent utopia and putting them both at risk.</p><p>Fusion fic with The Giver, but you don't need to have read it to understand this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by The Giver trailer that came out recently, which makes me both super excited and really nervous, because The Giver was one of my favourite childhood books and I would be really upset if they messed it up.
> 
> Again, you don't need to know anything about The Giver universe to read this. Hopefully, I've made a good enough job of explaining it in the story. Enjoy!

“Time’s up everyone, please hand in your assignments.”

John rose from his chair along with the rest of his classmates. The group of Elevens formed a neat line towards the front of the classroom where the Instructor was sitting at his desk. Behind him, his best friend Sherlock slipped into line as well, poking him in the arm with his pencil. Turning his head, John could see the messy scrawl of Sherlock’s writing on the assignment and smiled fondly, although he knew that penmanship was important and Sherlock would likely be called in for a gentle chastisement again, soon.

“Meet me at the tree after volunteer hours,” Sherlock whispered. John nodded to show he had heard and glanced quickly up at the two Elders seated at the side of the classroom, neither of whom were looking their way, thankfully.

The levels of observation have been rising steadily through the years as the children had grown up, and had drastically increased in the past year. John knew that this was essential for the Assignments that will soon be announced at the Ceremony of Twelve. While he had never heard of a bad Assignment, John was still a bit worried that he may be the exception. Ever since he was a Six, had twisted his ankle playing ball games and had to be taken to the Rehabilitation Centre, John had wanted to be a Doctor. He had spent almost all of his volunteer hours there over the years, and he hoped that the Elders were taking note of this. Mostly, John was glad that the Elders were paying more and more attention to them, though it made sneaking away to the tree much more difficult.

Sherlock and John had discovered the tree when they were Eights. It was in the small cluster of trees beside one of the fields where the children often gathered to play games, with a sturdy branch low enough for a child to heave himself onto. From there, you could continue climbing from branch to branch until you were surrounded by leaves and could not be seen unless someone was standing right at the base and looking directly up.

When they had made it up into the canopy that first time, John had looked around excitedly and was ready to leap back down to show Mike and Molly, who were playing obliviously in the field just a dozen metres away. Sherlock had grabbed his arm and said, “No, don’t tell anyone.”

John had paused and frowned at that.

“It’s not lying if you don’t say anything about it,” Sherlock had said, “And no one is going to ask you, ‘Have you and Sherlock been hiding up in one of those trees?’”

John had snorted at that. Of course no one would think to ask that – it was a ridiculous question! – and decided that it was okay. As the years went by, though, John realized that they would get in trouble, regardless, if their hiding spot was found. He and Sherlock went to the tree so they could talk without anyone else hearing, or even just to play without everyone around. You weren’t supposed to do those things either – it wasn’t polite to exclude other people. But by that time, John had grown too fond of the tree to consider letting anyone else know. Besides, he made plenty of exceptions when it came to Sherlock, and nothing bad had ever come out of it. After all, you can’t feel bad about being excluded if you didn’t know it was happening.

After classes ended, the group of Elevens filed out of the school and headed for their bicycles, standing upright on the rack designated for their group. As John wheeled his bike out and got ready to head out, Molly stepped in beside him with her own bicycle.

“Hi, John. Are you heading to the Rehabilitation Centre today?” Molly asked with a small smile. Molly was another Eleven and one of John’s good friends. No matter how long they have been friends, Molly was always a little bit timid and sometimes stuttered a little, even after being called into chastisement numerous times for it.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Where are you going?”

“I was thinking of going to the Rehabilitation Centre, too,” Molly said.

“Okay!” John grinned happily. He liked spending time with Molly. She was sweet and gentle, and it was nice to spend his volunteer hours with a friend.

When they stepped into the lobby of the Rehabilitation Centre, they were greeted by the front desk attendant. “Hello, John. Hello, Molly,” she said with a soft smile, and handed the sign-up sheet to them. “Do you remember little Tina, John?”

“Oh yes,” he replied. “She’s the one who sprained her wrist a few months ago, isn’t she?”

“That’s right. She came back again this morning. She’s got a pretty nasty cut from a fall, this time.”

John and the attendant exchanged exasperated smiles. Tina was an extremely clumsy Five, and John hoped that it was a stage she would soon outgrow.

“Anyway,” continued the attendant, “the Doctors patched her up this morning, but they’re about to take another look at her wound. Why don’t you two go give them a hand?”

John and Molly soon found themselves following the Doctor, Sarah, into a small room in the Centre.

“Hi, Tina. How are you feeling?” Sarah asked as she walked over to the little female.

“Better, but it’s starting to hurt again,” she said with a little pout.

“Well, that’s because it’s time for your relief-of-pain medication. Molly, you’ve been holding on to that bottle, haven’t you, dear?”

Molly nodded as she went to refill the cup on the bedside table with water, then reached into the bottle she was carrying to get out a little white pill.

“Here you go, Tina,” she said as she knelt down so she was level with the little female, handing her the cup and pill. “You’ll feel all better soon.”

Tina looked at Molly and gave her a big smile.

Sarah turned to John, then. “You’ve done this before. Why don’t you have a look at her wound?”

John nodded as he walked to the other side of the bed. Tina’s cut was on her left side, a little bit above her stomach. John gently lifted up the little girl’s tunic to her chest to reveal the bandage below. Ordinarily, there were rules against seeing other people’s bare skin. Members of the community were supposed to keep themselves covered at all times, but some exceptions had to be made – in the case of an injury, for example, or for newchildren and the Old.

John carefully uncovered the bandage, and could see the neat stitches that Sarah, or another Doctor, had made this morning. The area was still red, but it was already beginning to heal with the help of the Healing ointment. Now, he used a damp cloth to wipe away some of the little bits of blood and secretions from the edges of the wound, then reapplied the ointment. As Tina giggled at something Molly said, John took out a fresh bandage and patched her back up.

“There you go,” he said, giving her a soft pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, John,” she said, turning and fixing her bright eyes on him. Her smile made a feeling of accomplishment well up inside him, and he hoped that he would get to do this for the rest of his life.

 

\--

 

“Don’t be silly, John,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes from where he sat on the opposite branch of the tree. “Of course your assignment will be Doctor, so stop worrying.”

John sighed, long since having given up on chiding Sherlock for being rude and cocky. Of course, he was usually quite polite to most people these days, after some appalling incidents and many smacks with the discipline wand when he was a Five. When it was only John, though, Sherlock had never gotten into the habit of censoring himself.

“You’re not the Elders, so you wouldn’t know for sure,” John pointed out.

“Right. And when have I ever been wrong?” Sherlock asked, eyes glinting. John thought about that. It was true – every year, Sherlock would make quiet predictions as to the Assignments of Elevens they knew, and he would always, always get it right. For instance, last year, Sally from next door was assigned to Rules Enforcement just like Sherlock said, even though Sally herself had no idea what her Assignment was going to be.

“Maya,” John suddenly exclaimed, triumphant. “You said she was going to be in Food Distribution.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes again. Maya was Sherlock’s sister, older than them by seven years, who was now working as an assistant to the Elders. “I was a Five when she was assigned, so that doesn’t count. Besides, it was a fair guess since she _does_ love to eat so much.”

John laughed, remembering the way Sherlock and Maya used to tease each other. John hadn’t seen Maya very much for the past few years, though, not since she had moved out of her parents’ house after her training finished two years after her assignment. John heard that she had just been given a spouse, and he wondered who the Elders thought would be a good match for her.

“Fine, then,” John said, “since we’re on the topic, why don’t you do everyone else?”

Sherlock grinned widely then, as he always did when John asked him to show off. “Well, Molly is obviously going to be a Caretaker of the Old, and Mike will be a Doctor, as well.”

“Really?” John asked, surprised. It was rare that two Twelves received the same Assignment in one year, though it does happen occasionally when both were especially well-suited for an Assignment.

“Yes, of course.” Suddenly, Sherlock’s eye went wide and an arm went out to grip John’s, almost knocking them both off the tree. “John! Your eyes –”

“My –” John stiffened, one arm tightening around the tree trunk to steady himself, then let out an exasperated breath.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Sherlock cut in, then leaned a bit closer to gaze more closely at John’s eyes, “stop being so sensitive about it.” He squinted at John, turning his head to examine him from a few different angles and making John distinctly uncomfortable, before shaking his head. “You _do_ realize my eyes are just like yours.”

“Right,” John said, a little embarrassed. He had gotten used to the way people sometimes looked at him, just quick glances from the corners of their eyes to avoid being rude, and sometimes forgot that the same thing must happen to Sherlock. While the majority of the members of the community had dark eyes, John and Sherlock’s were a much lighter shade. In fact, Sherlock’s eyes were even paler than his, almost alien, as if he could see things that no one else guessed.

“So what was that about?” John asked.

“Oh, nothing. I thought I saw something, but I probably just imagined it.”

“Imagining things? I thought you’ve outgrown that.” John smiled, and shrugged. After all, Sherlock had always been a little bit odd.

 

\--

 

“Good morning, John.”

“Good morning, Mother,” John said as he came downstairs for breakfast the next morning. His father and his younger sister Harriet were already seated at the kitchen table.

“Who wants to go first today?” Mother asked as she placed the food delivered by the Food Distribution Attendants onto the table and sat down herself.

“Oh, me!” Harry exclaimed. Harry was only a Seven and her dream, like always, was long and outrageous. This time, it involved a bicycle that had come to life and chased her around the schoolyard. The family listened carefully to her dream and smiled. Harry’s dreams never made a lot of sense, and they had long since given up trying to derive meaning out of them.

“Thank you for your dream, Harry,” they intoned as she concluded.

Mother and Father then proceeded to relate their own dreams, which were much more sensible, and they discussed how the dreams were linked to what had happened to them the previous day.

Finally, it was John’s turn, and three pairs of eyes settled on him expectantly.

John shifted uncomfortably in his chair. For some reason, he didn’t want to talk about what he had dreamt that night, even though he had no idea what it meant. But of course, keeping a dream to himself was against the rules, so he took a deep breath and began.

“I dreamt that I was at the Rehabilitation Centre,” John said.

“Doesn’t sound too different from real life.” Father said, and everyone laughed good-naturedly.

“Yes, well. I was in one of the rooms in the Centre. Actually, I think it was the same one that we were in yesterday, with Tina. But this time, it was Molly who was lying on the examination table.” Inexplicably, John felt his face heat up.

“And?” Mother prompted.

“I – well, for some reason, I was asking if I could lift her tunic up, even though she wasn’t injured.” John looked down at his hands, trying to hide his embarrassment. “I know, I’m not supposed to do that, it’s not polite.”

There was a moment of silence around the table, and John wondered if something was wrong. Then, his mother turned to Harry and said, “It’s almost time to go to school. Why don’t we start heading off?”

Harry gave John a look, but she did get up to leave. When they were alone, John turned to his father nervously. “Am I in trouble?”

Father laughed. “Oh no! That dream you had? That was the Stirrings.”

The Stirrings? John wasn’t sure if he had ever heard the term before.

“Don’t worry, it happens to everyone around your age. In fact, I’m sure they must have started for many of your classmates, as well.”

“Oh,” John said, still feeling unsure.

“It just means you’re ready for the pills,” his father continued, then reached up into the cupboard above them.

John’s eyes tracked the bottle his father was pulling down, then sighed in relief. All the adults took the pills, and he knew several of his friends did too. That was normal, then. And as John swallowed the pill his father handed to him, he experienced an odd sense of pride, feeling very much like a grown-up.

 

\--

 

“Are you almost ready yet?”

It was the morning of the Ceremony, and John could barely sit still. The day before had been the Ceremonies of One to Eight, and John had watched proudly as Harry stood on the stage to receive her new jacket, with smaller buttons and pockets, to signify her new status as an Eight. This afternoon, John was going to receive his Assignment, along with everyone else in his group. It was going to be the start of the rest of his life. And here was Harry, dawdling as she struggled to fix her braids into something presentable.

“Why don’t you go first, John?” his mother said, smiling as she turned to him from where she was focused on Harry’s hair. “You’ll be sitting with your group, anyway.”

John didn’t need to be told twice. Happily, he raced outside and grabbed his bike. Ahead, he spotted Sherlock heading towards the Auditorium with his own family.

“Sherlock!” He yelled as he pulled up beside them.

“Good morning, John!” Sherlock’s mother greeted him kindly, and Sherlock himself gave John a nod and acknowledged him with an upwards quirk of his lips.

“Excited for the big day?” Sherlock’s father asked.

“Yeah!”

“I feel sorry for the poor souls who will have to deal with Sherlock starting tomorrow,” Sherlock frowned at the teasing from his father, but that just added to everyone’s laughter. John chattered with Sherlock’s parents during the short journey to the Auditorium, feeling his chest fill with popping bubbles.

 

\--

 

John sat on his chair in the front row of the Auditorium, trying very hard to stop fidgeting. After what seemed like an extremely long morning, the Ceremony of Twelve had finally arrived. John’s group was seated neatly in the first two rows, in order of their numbers.

Fifty newchildren were born every year in the community, and each was given a number according to the order in which they were born. The Nurturers used the numbers in the newchildren’s first year of life, when they lived in the Nurturing Centre before being assigned to their family units. At the Ceremony of One, newchildren born the previous year received their names and were matched with their future families. Each family unit was allowed one male and one female each, and John could still remember the day he had stood on stage with Mother and Father to receive Harry, even though he was only a Four himself that year.

After the first year, however, the numbers didn’t matter very much except for the Ceremonies. Sherlock had been born at the very beginning of the year and was One. John, meanwhile, had been born in the middle of the year and was Twenty-Two.

The Auditorium suddenly turned quiet as the Chief Elder climbed back onto the stage. She cleared her throat, and began her speech about the end of childhood and the significance of the Ceremony of Twelve.

“This is the time when we acknowledge differences,” she continued as she fixed her gaze on the Elevens in the front. “You Elevens have spent all your years till now learning to fit in, to standardize your behaviour, to curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group.” And here, John was pretty sure she glanced at Sherlock sitting at the head of the row, though it was too quick for him to be certain. “But today we honour your differences. They have determined your futures.” John listened carefully as she began to introduce their group of Elevens, naming the traits in the group without singling anyone out by name. He tried to figure out if he was one of the Elevens being described, and wondered if the one who derived joy from taking care of others referred to him.

Finally, the general introduction part of the Ceremony ended, and the announcements of the Assignments began.

“One, Sherlock.” She said warmly as he stood up from his seat and headed for the stage. He turned to look at John before taking the steps up. John gave him a small smile of encouragement; even though his strides were confident and his hands were steady, John could see the nervousness that Sherlock was trying to hide.

“Sherlock is certainly an interesting member of our community,” the Chief Elder began. “As I’m sure many of us remember, he used to be a very troublesome little boy.” Chuckles worked their way through the assembled audience. Privately, John thought that the use of past tense was probably premature. “Who could forget the little male who was the reason for three community-wide search efforts in the space of two months? Or the time he tore up half the grass in the schoolyard to look at the soil underneath?” Giggles spread throughout the crowd, and to John’s surprise, Sherlock was actually wearing a faint expression of embarrassment. “But he turned out all right, didn’t he? When was the last time you did one of your ‘experiments,’ Sherlock?”

“I don’t remember,” he replied with every sign of earnestness, but his eyes were fixed on John’s. In his seat, John had to bite his lips to suppress a giggle. Just last week, he thought.

The Chief Elder then went on to describe Sherlock’s intelligence, his attention to detail and his many accomplishments in the past few years. Finally, she turned to the boy and said, “Sherlock, we have given you the Assignment of Assistant Director of Technological Development.”

At her words, a huge grin broke out over Sherlock’s face. It was, of course, what Sherlock himself had expected, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from beaming nonetheless. The Chief Elder attached his new badge to Sherlock’s tunic and shook his hand.

“Sherlock,” she said, “thank you for your childhood.”

The Assignments passed by in a haze for John after that. Mike did indeed receive the Assignment of Doctor, and John hoped that he would be joining him in training tomorrow. Finally, Number Twenty-One returned to his seat, and it was John’s turn. He took deep breaths, in and out, and waited for his number to be called.

“Twenty-Three,” he heard, “Alice.”

John’s eyes snapped open. She had skipped him! A glance around showed that everyone else was shocked as well, looking briefly at him before quickly averting their eyes. An invisible, stifling sense of unease had filled the room. What had happened? John had completed all his volunteer hours, hadn’t he? And all his school assignments? Perhaps they couldn’t assign two Doctors in one year, and he would have to wait? The possibilities spun around and around in John’s head, making him dizzy and turning the proceedings of the rest of the Ceremony into something out of a nightmare. He could feel Sherlock’s eyes boring into him from the other side of the room, and John couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes. How could he look at Sherlock now, with his brand new Technological Development badge pinned to his chest?

Finally, Number Fifty received his Assignment. By this time, John was feeling sick with worry. He had kept expecting the Chief Elder to cut in after each Assignment was announced, apologize, and tell the audience that she had made a mistake. By the time the applause subsided for Fifty, John had given up hope. He wondered how he was ever going to face his family and his classmates again. Would he grow to be the subject of cautionary tales told to misbehaving Elevens, warning them to do what they’re supposed to, unless they wanted to end up like John?

Suddenly, the Chief Elder spoke again, and the words broke through John’s gloomy thoughts. “I know that you are all concerned. That you feel I have made a mistake.” John’s head shot up, not quite daring to hope.

“I have caused you anxiety. I apologize to my community,” she said.

“We accept your apology,” they murmured back.

“John,” she continued, “I apologize to you in particular. I caused you anguish.”

“I accept your apology,” he replied, barely getting the words past his throat.

She invited him to the stage then, and he shakily complied, feeling his legs wobble like jelly and hoping that it wasn’t obvious to everyone else.

“John has not been assigned,” the Chief Elder began when John had taken his place beside her. “John has been _selected_.”

John turned up to look at her, wondering what she could possibly mean.

“John has been selected to be our next Receiver of Memory.”

A collective gasp emanated from the audience, and John felt faint where he stood. The Receiver of Memory was the most respected of the Elders, whose advice was sought not only by the Committee of Elders in their community, but also by the Elders in all the other communities nearby. And somehow, John had been chosen to be the next Receiver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know what's coming up, chapter 1 and 2 are fairly similar to the book. So for those of you who've read it, I hope I can avoid making it seem repetitious, but I do have to set up the basic premises. After that, it'll get more interesting, promise.
> 
> And yes, a lot of the Chief Elder's speech during the Ceremony is taken straight from The Giver. And I haven't read the newest book, Son, yet, so I apologize if any details turn out to be not canon-compliant.
> 
> Also, the end of the semester is coming up along with all the craziness, so I probably won't be able to update again for around two weeks or so (unless I end up procrastinating A LOT, which would be really not good). Sorry for the wait!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John starts his training, and finds out what the Memories are.

John pulled up to the Annex door at the back of the House of the Old and stepped off his bicycle. School had ended early, as it will everyday from now on, and it was early afternoon when John found himself standing in front of the unremarkable door, about to walk into his first day of training. John had no idea what to expect. Unlike the thick folders that some of his classmates had received after their Assignments, John’s folder contained only a single sheet. John had opened and closed his folder several times the night before, rereading the sheet over and over and expecting to find something he had missed. The piece of paper, however, contained only a few lines of instructions.

**JOHN**

**RECEIVER OF MEMORY**

  1.        Go immediately at the end of school hours each day to the Annex entrance behind the House of the Old and present yourself to the attendant.
  2.        Go immediately to your dwelling at the conclusion of Training Hours each day.
  3.        From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.
  4.        Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community, including parents and Elders.
  5.        From this moment you are prohibited from dream-telling.
  6.        Except for illness and injury unrelated to your training, do not apply for any medication.
  7.        You are not permitted to apply for release.
  8.        You may lie.



John was surprised by how sparse and simple the instructions were. Some of the notes had amused him when he first read them, such as number three – he doubted that he would ever feel the urge to make use of the privilege, but he couldn’t help but imagine the havoc Sherlock would wreak if he had received the same exemptions. Other parts, however, had startled him.

Ever since they were newchildren, John and his classmates had been taught not to lie or to keep anything from others. Good feelings and occasions should be shared, and any problems you have could be solved with the help of others. Besides, to do otherwise wouldn’t be polite. Of course, John hasn’t exactly been the most vigilant in strictly following those rules, but being officially allowed to do so was still a shock. Then, there was the fact that he wasn’t given a choice to keep the information to himself, but actually being _ordered_ to do so.

Just then, John noticed the buzzer at the side of the Annex door. He pressed the button, and a male’s voice rang through.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” John replied. “It’s John. Um, I’m the new Receiver-in-training?”

“Yes, of course.” There was a clicking sound, and John realized with a start that the door was locked – most doors in the community didn’t even have a lock installed! “Come in, please.”

Carefully, John pushed open the door and stepped inside. To his relief, the lobby looked very ordinary. It had a desk where the attendant was sitting and a small shelf attached to the wall which was weighed down with stacks of papers. The attendant smiled and stood up where he was sitting, then pressed a button on the wall beside him. This unlocked another door on the other side of the room.

John stepped through the door, and almost fell over. The basic layout of the dwelling looked familiar enough, with a bed, table, desk, chairs and a sofa. The sofa and curtains, however, were made of fabrics with intricate flowery designs that were unlike anything John had ever seen before. What had really surprised him, though, was the way that the fabrics almost seemed to glow. There was some quality about them that he couldn’t define, and it was gone when John blinked.

“Are you all right, dear?” the elderly woman sitting on one of the chairs said, and John snapped out of his daze to look at her.

“I-I’m fine,” he stuttered, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Come here, John,” she said, gesturing at the sofa opposite her. Quietly, he did, suppressing his nervousness.

Like most members of the community, John had only seen the Receiver a few times before. She seemed to be almost separate from the community; she was rarely present at public events, even the Ceremony which every other citizen was required to attend. On the rare occasions that John had seen her, he had always been struck by how ordinary she seemed. She didn’t look very different from the other elderly citizens in the House of the Old, with light hair, a rounded face, and many wrinkles showing her age. Even her manner, polite and gentle, did not seem special. In fact, the only remarkable thing about her were her eyes, which were pale like John’s and had lead to an uncalled-for comment from Harry the first time they had seen her, many years ago.

“Would you care for something to drink?” The Receiver asked.

John shook his head, and silence fell over the two of them. For a few long moments, neither could think of anything to say. Finally, it was the Receiver who spoke first.

“I am old, as you can see” she began, “and it has been a long time since I’ve talked to anyone about the Memories.”

John nodded. “I know. I read the instructions.”

“Yes,” the Receiver said, then sighed. “I’m sure you have an idea of what to expect, then.”

“Erm, actually – I don’t. I mean, I know that the Receiver is a very important Assignment, but I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

The Receiver considered this for a moment, and John wondered briefly if he was being particularly slow. Then, she continued. “I think the best way to explain is with a demonstration. Why don’t you lie down on the bed, dear? Oh, and remove your tunic.”

John eyed the bed uneasily, but did as he was told. It seemed that he was going to have to rethink his idea of what was normal, now that he had been selected as the new Receiver. He laid face-down and closed his eyes, listening to the Receiver’s quiet, uneven steps as she made her way to him from where she sat. John felt her warm, papery hands settle on his back. What followed was the strangest experience of John’s life.

_Warmth. It was the first sensation John felt when he opened his eyes. It was a different feeling from the heat that washed over him when playing a particularly vicious game of tag, or when stepping into the shower; this was a warmth that John felt, strangely, with his heart rather than his skin, and it seemed to come from all around him._

_Blinking, John looked around and was surprised to find that he was no longer in the Receiver’s dwelling. Instead, he was sitting in a room with flowery patterns on the walls and every surface cluttered with a shocking array of objects. Every room in the community was sparsely populated by simple, functional pieces of furniture, and even the classrooms only contained a few extra educational posters and models, with some toys for the younger children. This room, however, was filled with objects that John had never seen before. Vaguely, John could identify what looked like a human skull, as he had once seen from a model at the Rehabilitation Centre. What was the most jarring, however, was that the entire room had the same unknown quality he had seen momentarily when he had walked into the Receiver’s dwelling._

_Drawing his attention back from where it wandered across the room, John realized that he was sitting in a chair – an armchair, something in his mind supplied – that was old and lumpy. In front of him, on a little round wooden table, was a cup. The cup was filled with a hot liquid – tea – and John could see little wisps of steam rising from it. As if his arms were acting of their own accord, John reached over and raised the cup to his lips. When he took a sip, it felt like he was drinking in not only the unfamiliar fluid but also the warmth that suffused the space around him._

John snapped open his eyes. “What was that?” he asked.

“That,” the Receiver replied, “was a Memory.”

“A Memory?”

“Yes. You are the Receiver of Memories, aren’t you?”

“Well, I guess I am. I mean, you are the Receiver, really, but I suppose I am too,” John stuttered, and felt his face heat up. Thankfully, the older woman only smiled. Then, something occurred to John. “If I’m the Receiver, then what do I call you?”

There was a short pause. “I guess you can call me the Giver, then.”

John nodded. That fit, he supposed.

“So that Memory. Was it yours, then? I mean, were you in that room with the – the armchair, and the tea?”

“Oh, you got that, did you?” The Giver looked pleased. “The names of things, I mean. This will make things much easier. And no, that wasn’t my memory! That memory was from a very long time ago.”

“A long time ago?”

“Yes. The previous Receiver passed it on to me when I was in training, and the Receiver before him gave it to him, and back and back and back.”

“Is that what things were like then, back and back and back?”

“Oh yes! That was inside someone’s dwelling. Everyone’s dwelling was different back then, filled with things that they had bought or gotten as a gift or just somehow collected.”

“Bought?” John repeated. The word was unfamiliar.

“I’m sorry, I’m not being very clear at all, am I?” John began to say the standard reply to accept her apology, but she simply went on. “In the old days, you didn’t just get food delivered by Food Distribution, or get furniture or living supplies from the community. Back then, everyone had to have a ‘job,’ like an Assignment, but they were given something called ‘money’ for doing work. And then they used money to buy the things they wanted, like exchanging an apple with your friend for an orange.”

John tried to wrap his mind around this strange concept. The Giver smiled, and seemed to understand his problem. “I know, dear, it’s a lot to process at first. Things were so different back then.”

“So why did they change?” John asked.

“Well, we decided to go to Sameness. So nobody would have more things than other people. You saw the flat – the dwelling – in the Memory. There were so many things that they didn’t need! It was a waste, and it made people sad when they couldn’t have things that other people did.”

John nodded. That, at least, he could understand. “Is that why we have to keep the Memories then, so other people don’t remember feeling sad?”

“That’s right, John. You’re a clever boy, aren’t you?”

John blushed at that. No one had ever singled him out like that before. Those weren’t things you said, because they reminded people of how they were different, and that was never a comfortable topic.

“So the – the armchair, and tea, those were all real?” She nodded in response. Then, John remembered something. “What was that – that quality? The entire dwelling was somehow different. And when I walked in here, I saw the same thing too.”

“Like they aren’t any different in their shape or size, but something else about how the things looked?”

“Yeah!”

“John,” the Giver said with an approving smile. “You’re starting to see colour.”

 

\--

 

After the first day, John found himself looking forward to his training sessions. There was something exciting about walking into the little room in the Annex, not knowing whether he would be hiking through a forest or diving into the depths of the ocean. At school, when Mike talked about his training, John found that his dreams of being a Doctor seemed like a lifetime ago, even though he knew that it hadn't been very long since he was Assigned.

Stories about training was all everyone talked about at school now. Sherlock couldn't seem to stop chattering about the new things he was learning – how the Food Production systems worked, what the heat-sensing airplanes looked like on the inside – using words like _electromagnetic_ and _thermodynamics_ that none of the other Twelves understood. Molly talked about how much she enjoyed spending time with the Old. Today, she was telling them about preparing for the Ceremony of Release for a man named Roberto.

“He’s a lovely man, one of my favourites,” Molly said. “I've heard so many wonderful stories about his life. And he's very excited for the Ceremony, of course. I've been helping him with his goodbye speech.”

John had never heard Molly being so talkative before, or so content and confident. The Elders had chosen well, as always.

“What happens in the Ceremony of Release?” John asked, curious.

“Oh, we’re going to gather all of the Old in the Releasing Room so they can share a last meal with Roberto. There will be a lot of speeches, from whoever wants to share a story about him. Finally, we’ll have Roberto’s goodbye speech, and then we let him go.”

“And then he goes to Elsewhere?”

“That’s right!” Molly said.

Suddenly, something occurred to John. “How does he know how to get to Elsewhere? I've never been outside the community except that time when we were Eights, when we went to visit the Eights in another community. I don't think I could find Elsewhere.”

Molly frowned. “I'm not sure,” she replied.

“Do you think there’s someone from Elsewhere who picks him up?” John asked.

Molly considered this. “Yes, I think so.”

When it was John’s turn to tell stories, however, he stayed silent. This drew strange looks from his classmates, but nobody said anything. The conversation would continue, but there would be a strange, uncomfortable feeling in the group from then on. John didn't like being the one to make others uneasy, and he very much wanted to tell his friends about his training. He wanted to tell them about the way sunlight reflected off a lake at sunset, or the fact that the mythical “animals” used as a figure of speech had once been real; he realized, however, that even if he was allowed to talk about his training, he wouldn't be able to describe what he was learning. How do you describe red and blue to someone who didn't know about colours?

John brought this up with his father one evening. Not the colours part, of course, but the fact that he couldn't talk easily with his friends the way he used to. Father had given John a small smile and sat down beside him.

“That's the way it is,” he said. “Don't you find that your friends are drifting away from each other, too?” John thought about it, and realized it was true. When someone was talking about their training, most of the others just smiled and nodded, as if they weren't really listening at all. “Once you’re Assigned, you get to spend more time with people who really share your interests, and less with the people you used to play with as children.”

“Did it happen to you, too?” John asked his father, who nodded. “Were you sad when it happened?”

Father let out a light chuckle. “Oh no, I barely noticed! There were so many new things to learn that I didn't have much time to think about anything else.”

John nodded. His father was a Nurturer of Newchildren and he loved his Assignment. John could imagine his father’s excitement when he had been Assigned. Even today, the family would always hear about Father’s contentment when a problematic newchild finally settled down and stopped crying all the time, or his quiet resignation when one wasn't able to make his weight measurements by the end of the year and had to be Released.

“Don't worry too much about it, Johnny,” Father said and patted his head.

 

\--

 

Several days after he started his training, John finally asked the Giver a question that he had been wondering about for a while.

“How did you decide who will be the next Receiver?” He asked when he had settled down onto the bed as usual.

“Well, you heard the Chief Elder’s speech after you were selected, didn't you?” She replied. “The Receiver must have intelligence, integrity, courage, the capacity for wisdom, and the ability to See Beyond.”

“I know,” John said, “but why me, specifically? Lots of people have those qualities, and how did you know I would be able to See Beyond?” After John had asked the Giver about colours on the first day, the Giver had told him that this was what Seeing Beyond meant.

“The eyes, John,” the Giver said, sitting down on the bed beside him. “What do the two of us have in common?”

“Oh. Of course,” John said, feeling a bit dim for not having connected the dots before. After he had first begun to see colour all the time, John had spent a lot of time just looking at everyday objects, feeling as if he was seeing them for the first time. He had spent a while looking at the mirror in his bathroom as well, examining the blue colour of his own eyes, until Harry had knocked agitatedly on the door and asked what was taking him so long. John stared back up into the Giver’s eyes, which were a slightly brighter shade than his. Suddenly, John thought of something.

“What about Sherlock? His eyes are light too, but not like ours.” John had been shocked the first time he had noticed. He had briefly wondered whether he had suddenly lost the ability to See Beyond, before realizing that Sherlock’s skin, while pale, still retained its peachy hue and his lips were still a light pink.

“Yes, they're quite something, aren't they? Grey eyes were very unusual even in the old days, before Sameness.”

“Would Sherlock make a good Receiver too?”

The Giver frowned at that. “He would have been able to Receive, but as for whether he would be a good Receiver…” She trailed off, and John felt an ugly feeling creep up inside him.

“I think Sherlock would make a great Receiver,” John said defensively.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to insult him,” the Giver reassured him. “I just meant that different people are suited for different things. That's why we have Assignments. Sherlock is – there’s nothing wrong with him, of course, but – there was someone like him, many years ago. It didn't work out.” She seemed to hesitate in saying this last part, and she shifted uncomfortably.

John felt his eyes widen. “You mean there was another selection, before me?” The Giver nodded, avoiding his eyes. John knew that he shouldn't push, shouldn't make her more uneasy than she already was, but he couldn't contain his curiosity. “What happened?” He whispered.

She sighed. After a pause, she spoke again. “It was ten years ago, and there was another selection, just like yours. The Chief Elder gave out the Assignments, and skipped over a boy when it should have been his turn. The uneasiness in the crowds was the same. Then at the end, she made the same announcement.”

“I've never heard of it before!” John blurted out.

“Oh, no one talks about it much. In fact, we’re not supposed to say his name, or use it again for a newchild. That selection was a failure.” John could see regret and sorrow pass over the Giver’s face. John was shocked. A name that was Not-to-Be-Spoken meant that the previous bearer had committed an offense of the highest degree of disgrace.

“What happened to him?”

The Giver just looked at John for a long moment. “I’ll tell you someday. But not right now.”

John was reluctant to let the issue go, but he could see how speaking about it troubled the Giver and simply nodded.

 

\--

 

About two weeks into his training, John went to the Annex one day to find the Giver curled up in her chair. When he hesitantly said hello, she looked up at him with sunken eyes and told him to go home for the day. John moved to the door but stopped indecisively in front of it, not wanting to leave the elderly lady alone in pain. In the end, John got two glasses of water from the attendant (he wished they had tea) and sat quietly with the Giver for the afternoon. Neither of them said a word and John spent the next few hours finishing his school assignments at the little desk in the room, but before he left to go home, the Giver gave him a pained but genuine smile and kissed him on the forehead.

Walking home, John wondered if that was the life that was waiting for him. After his training is completed, the Giver will move into the House of the Old. One day, she will be Released, and there will be no one that John could share the Memories with. For the first time, he wondered if the Giver had had a spouse and children, and whether it was even allowed for the Receiver of Memories.

When John returned to the Giver’s dwelling the next day, she was her usual self, smiling and welcoming. John briefly wondered if the Giver would prefer not to talk about the day before, but he felt there was something he had to ask. Seeing the Giver’s suffering had reminded him of it.

“At the Ceremony, after I was selected, the Chief Elder said that my training would involve pain.”

“Yes,” the Giver replied, and there was an odd quality to her voice.

“But I haven’t felt any pain yet. All the Memories you’ve given me so far, they’ve all been so _nice_. There’s something else to it, isn’t there?”

The Giver was quiet for a while before she answered. “I didn’t want to give them to you yet, but I suppose it had to start sooner or later.”

“If there are bad Memories,” John said, “I don’t want you to keep them from me. I’ll have to have them eventually, anyway.”

The Giver nodded, looking resigned. “All right. Why don’t you lie down, then?”

_When John opened his eyes with the now-familiar sensation of Receiving a Memory, he found himself in a small living room, similar to the one he had been in on his first day of training and once again holding a cup of tea. He smiled, thinking that the Giver must be very fond of the drink indeed, and briefly wondered what pain could come in a place such as this._

_John raised the mug to his lips and sipped, briefly closing his eyes and enjoying the taste. That was when something knocked into him, something large and furry that ran into him on its way through the room – a dog, John recognized. He only had a second to process this, however, because the collision made him drop the cup in his hands, and hot, boiling liquid spilled over his hands and his lap. At first, all he felt was the impact of the splashes; then gradually, sharp, tingling pain rushed in and escalated until it made him cry out._

John gasped awake, sitting up onto the bed. The burning feeling remained, though dulled. Out of reflex, he asked for relief-of-pain medication. Every household stored a few of those pills in a bottle for the times when someone was injured. If the injury was serious enough, like that time John had twisted his ankle, they were taken to the Rehabilitation Centre. But the Giver just looked at him and shook her head. John remembered the rule in his Assignment folder: except for illness and injury unrelated to your training, do not apply for any medication. John took a deep breath and told himself that he didn’t need it.

“That wasn’t too bad,” John said bravely. “I’ve burned myself before, although the tea was hotter than any food in the community.”

The Giver chuckled, looking amused. “Don’t worry, it’ll get worse.”

 

\--

 

And it did get worse. Almost every session contained a Memory of pain now, sometimes two. The Giver always ended the training hours with a happy memory, but John soon came to know all sorts of pain – sunburns, headaches, broken bones. While the citizens of the community sometimes experienced these, the feeling never lasted for more than the few minutes it took to retrieve and swallow the relief-of-pain medication. For John, the pain lingered after the Memories had ended and he made his way out of the Annex. Sometimes it lasted for days, like the persistent ache from the broken leg that kept him from sleeping or concentrating on anything else.

“I understand dear; I’ve got a hip,” the Giver said sympathetically as she watched John limp with a pain that wasn’t really there. “I got it from a bad one, and it never really went away.” Unsurprisingly, that didn’t make John feel any better.

None of this, however, was as terrible as the pain that wasn’t physical.

As the weeks dragged on, the Giver showed him Memories of starvation, loneliness, and depression. She seemed to understand that these Memories were the most difficult, and would give him a special Memory to follow them and give him a break for the next day or two. John would always force his lips to lift in a smile, telling himself to be brave.

John understood the Giver’s suffering now, the way she sometimes looked tormented. Some nights, he would curl into a ball in his bed, breathing harshly in and out and struggling to reach the same state of peaceful contentment that he had felt before his Assignment. Sometimes, John thought that the pain would be easier to bear if he could talk to someone about it, if he could climb into his parents’ bed like he had as a child and snuggle in between them, but he knew it was not possible. The only person who knew what he felt was the Giver, but he didn’t like to see the ever-present guilt in her eyes sharpen into self-loathing.

The Memories made him moody. John tried not to, but sometimes he found himself snapping at his family and friends for no good reason. The littlest things would irritate him, and sometimes the carefree laughter of those around him filled him with bitterness. It seemed that John was learning a whole new array of negative feelings that he had never known existed. His friends and family noticed, of course. When they shared feelings over meals, his parents listened to the watered-down versions of his day and asked pointedly if there was anything else he wanted to talk about. At school, conversations became stilted when he joined in. Several times a day, Sherlock would throw pensive looks at him and narrow his eyes like he was studying one of the machines he worked with. Often, he would ask John to meet him at the tree, but he always made an excuse and refused. Thinking of the tree reminded John of the happy innocence of his childhood. Part of him wished that he could go back to that time, even though he knew that it was his responsibility to bear the Memories, and that it was his efforts that allowed the community to run the way it was.

The very worst of the Memories, however, was given to him one afternoon just like any other. He had laid down on the bed in the Annex, and the Giver had started the session with a sweet Memory of a picnic on a sunny day. Then, she hesitated, and there was an unreadable look in her eyes as she settled her hands onto his back again for the second Memory.

_It was loud, extremely loud. His ears rang from the deafening noise, and it took John a while to realize that what he was hearing wasn’t a continuous roar but a series of bangs coming from all directions. Looking around, John found that he was crouched down in a desert, recognizing it from a Memory he had Received a week ago._

_Another loud bang sounded, and someone beside him screamed. John turned around to see the man falling to the ground, clutching at his side. Horrified, John leapt towards him, trying to drag him away into a sheltered area using his own body as a shield. He tore at the man’s clothing, trying to assess the damage and stem the flow of blood. In the Memory, John knew that he should be able to save the man, that this was what he was here for, but he could do nothing as the blood gushed out and through the cracks between John's fingers, taking his friend’s life with it as the red liquid soaked into the desert sand._

_“Parker! Stay with me! Parker!” He screamed, trying to reverse the damage through sheer force of will._

_The young man opened one eye slowly, and a strange little half smile crept onto his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was blood that came out instead of words. John shook his shoulders desperately, but the man’s eyes only grew dimmer and dimmer until it was only a husk empty of any life._ Dead _– the voice in John’s head said, and the word repeated itself again and again in his mind, making his entire body go numb and heavy._

_Just then, another booming sound exploded beside him, and everything went black._

John was crying when he snapped out of the Memory. He gripped onto the blankets and sobbed into them, unable to stop and barely able to catch a breath. He buried himself in the bed and squeezed his eyes shut, but all he could see behind his closed eyelids was the lifeless eyes of the other man. Dimly, he could hear the Giver’s frantic apologies and a hand rubbing gentle circles into his back. John shied away from the touch, not wanting to feel her sympathy or sorrow.

He doesn’t know how long he stayed like that, but it felt like hours before John cried himself out and sat up with swollen eyes. He went into the bathroom attached to the Giver’s dwelling and cleaned himself up. There was nothing he could do about the redness around his eyes, but he didn’t leave the bathroom until he looked otherwise normal and could speak without a crack in his voice.

When he stepped back into the main room, the Giver offered to give him another Memory – one of her favourites – before he left, but John refused. He avoided her eyes as well as the attendant’s as he left the Annex, retrieved his bicycle and went home. When he stepped through the door of his dwelling, his mother looked up from where she was reading papers from work and asked if something was wrong. John simply said that he had a tiring day of training, that he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to rest. As he laid awake in his bed, part of him wished that one of his parents, or even Harry, would knock on the door and demand to know what had really happened, but they left him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 2! Sherlock really starts doing something in the next one, and I for one am really excited!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, Sherlock has been having some problems of his own, and decides that he's had enough of John ignoring him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm SO sorry for how long this took! I rewrote it three times before I managed to get it to sound right. Hopefully it's worth the wait!

“What does everyone know about DNA?” asked the Instructor at the front of the classroom.

In his seat, Sherlock sighed and slumped back into his chair. Feeling bored during lessons was a familiar feeling to him, waiting impatiently for his classmates to catch up at a snail’s pace as the Instructor repeated the same simple concepts again and again, but he was especially restless these days. He didn’t understand why the Elders insisted on having the Twelves shut up in school in the mornings even after they received their Assignments, when there were many more interesting things to be concerned with now.

“DNA stores the genetic material in our bodies. For example, it codes for how your hair looks, or how big your nose is.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and turned to look out the window beside him, which was cracked open to allow fresh air into the classroom. Outside, the sky was the same uniform light grey as usual, with a white light shining through all directions. Sherlock leaned against the windowsill, and let his mind wander to the experiments he was planning to do that afternoon. Working with magnetic fields today, he thought, mentally running through the procedure he had planned to perform.

This, Sherlock has found, was a good way of helping him survive through the tedium of lessons. These days, even more than before, Sherlock’s brain rarely ever stopped spinning, tearing through observations and calculations and exploring every avenue of possibility. Whenever he found himself being forced to endure the Community’s meaningless rituals, he let his mind escape to the concepts and theorems that his mentors, Moira and Bill, had been teaching him. Unlike the Instructors he had growing up, they allowed him to perform experiments and were not bothered at all by his questions. How did airplanes work? What were the different ashes formed when you burn leaves and grasses? What was at the bottom of the river at the edge of the Community? Finally, he could get answers, or find ways to find them. Life was no longer a struggle to keep his rapidly churning mind in check, wondering why nobody else seemed to feel like they were suffocating in their bland, boring lives. There were things to _do_.

“Many, many years ago, scientists discovered a way to change DNA. In those days, many babies were born each year with problems – birth defects, they were called – and it became possible for us to correct them while the babies were still just a few cells inside their Birthmother.”

Suddenly, he heard something soft and whispery to his right, and sat up to stare out the window again. A light breeze wedged its way into the room to ruffle his hair, and he realized that what he had heard was the wind as it made its way between the leaves of the tree by the school building. There was nothing unusual about that, an ordinary sound heard every day, except there seemed to be something different about it today. The sound seemed to change, shifting alternatively shriller and deeper, giving a strange quality to the world around him that was both eerie and beautiful. Sherlock shivered, feeling goosebumps rising on his arms.

Sherlock looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed what Sherlock had heard. The curiosity began to give way to panic, trying to make its way out of his chest in little wisps. Looking down, he noticed that his hands were shaking against the top of the desk. Not here, he begged, not in the filled classroom with the Instructor droning on in the front and the other children sitting obliviously nearby. Without permission, the memory of that day in the tree months ago rose up, as well as the many instances since then when he had thought he was seeing or hearing something that wasn’t really there.

“Over the years, this bioengineering has been able to not only cure illness, but also give us the peace and equality that let us live the way we do today. Can anybody give me an example of bioengineering?”

The sounds of his classmates scouring their books as they scrambled for answers jolted Sherlock out of his building agitation. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, to redirect his thoughts back to his experiments, to the lesson – to anything else – but the unsettled feeling didn’t leave him the entire day.

 

\--

 

“Do you think I’m going crazy, John?” Sherlock asked, leaning back on a thick branch as he looked into the distance.

There was no answer. For a second, Sherlock wondered if he had broken another one of those pesky social rules that meant that John was now angry at him, before he remembered that the other boy wasn’t there.

Today, just like every time for the past few weeks, John had refused his invitation to meet him at their usual spot. He had finished training early today, and had decided to take advantage of the extra time to escape from the incessant chattering of his family and his classmates for a little while. In the past, John had never been a bother during these times, sitting quietly with Sherlock and letting him talk only when he wanted to. Now, though, Sherlock found that he missed the sound of John’s voice.

He sighed. Maybe he really was losing his mind, he thought, he even wished John was going on one of his stupid rants about why he wanted to be a Doctor, or how annoying Harry was being. He wondered what John was doing now, and why he had been slowly growing more and more quiet and refusing to join in on their classmates’ childish games that he had once enjoyed so much. Sherlock let out a grunt of frustration. Where was John? He _needed_ him, right now. It had happened to him again today, the visions, or whatever they were. He was at training, investigating samples of metal when suddenly, one of them _changed_. Just like the other times, he couldn’t describe how they had changed, or what the difference was exactly, but something had happened. He had never heard of something of the sort happening to anyone else before, and he was finding himself frightened of what it meant.

Instead of a soft murmur of consolation or a light joke from his best friend, all Sherlock heard was silence. The emptiness in the seat beside him was suddenly unbearable, leaving him feeling lost and lonely in a way that he had never experienced before. The secret joy of bending the rules, of hiding away in a place that no one else could find had disappeared, and after a few moments, Sherlock lowered himself down from the tall branches.

 

\--

 

“Who wants to start the telling of feelings tonight?” Mother asked.

Sherlock sighed. This was another one of those little rules of life that he didn’t understand. What was the point of having everyone share every little feeling they had, everyday? You would know if you felt something, wouldn’t you, and why would you need to tell other people about it?

“Don’t sigh when your mother asks a question,” Father admonished. “It’s rude.”

“Mother, I apologize for my rudeness,” Sherlock said, trying to not sound as exasperated by the pointless ritual as he was.

Mother smiled at him. “I accept your apology. Sherlock, why don’t you begin tonight, then?”

Stiffly, Sherlock nodded. Once, he had argued with Maya over who got to go first, simply for the satisfaction of not allowing her to get what she wanted. Those were the days before he had learned to be careful about what he said, and had rambled on and on about all he had felt that day. Mother and Father had patiently gone over everything with him, serenely explaining them away.

“Angry is a strong word, Sherlock. Did you really feel angry when your Instructor chastised you for not doing your assignment properly? Or were you just frustrated and a little embarrassed?”

“You know why you can’t do something else when it’s Games time, right? Everyone needs to do things together, or the Community would just be a mess of people doing their own things!”

“No! I was _really, really angry_!” Sherlock had shouted back, or, “But that’s stupid! I don’t _want_ to!”

And then, Sherlock would be told that he shouldn’t yell, and to apologize for being rude. He had often wondered how everybody else, even John, seemed to accept what the grown-ups said. As time went on, he began to think that, maybe, he was the only one who felt things the way he did.

Now, Sherlock said, “Today I felt unhappy, and a little disappointed.”

Father nodded. “And why was that?”

“I didn’t see John again after school today. He left right after the lessons, and didn’t even have lunch with us.” Sherlock said, telling the half-truth he had decided on. It was true – John had left to have lunch with the Receiver, despite his classmates’ half-hearted invitations. Of course, this wasn’t the most pressing of Sherlock’s worries. He was preoccupied with the hallucinations, or whatever they were, but he wasn’t about to tell his parents about them. He knew from experience what the responses were when he claimed to see and know things that others didn’t. At one time, he might have told Maya, but in the end she, too, had told him that it was best to keep quiet.

“I understand, Sherlock,” Mother replied sympathetically and patted him on one shoulder. “I’m sure it’s hard for you now, because you’ve been so used to spending so much time with him. But I’m sure he’s very busy with his Assignment and has a lot to talk about with his mentor, just like how you’re so excited about your own training.”

Sherlock nodded at his mother’s speech. Privately, however, he didn’t believe what his mother was saying was the case. Now that he thought about it, John didn’t look very happy at all and always seemed tired, but Sherlock didn’t say so.

“You know Karen, don’t you?” his mother continued.

“The Instructor of Tens?”

“Yes, that’s the one. She and I used to be best friends when we were in school, you know.” Mother said, matter-of-factly. “That’s how it is, you grow up to have your own job and your own family, and we’re both very happy now.”

Suddenly, Sherlock felt sick, the dinner he had just finished sitting uncomfortably in his stomach. He hadn’t known that Mother and Karen had been friends, never mind best friends. As far as he knew, they never saw each other in their free time, and when he and Mother had ran into Karen a few weeks ago, the two women barely exchanged a couple of sentences of greeting before parting ways. John’s vague smiles and polite refusals took on another meaning now, one that rang deeper than simply Sherlock’s annoyance at his friend’s strange behaviour. He could all too easily imagine the same courteous disinterest between the two of them in a few years’ time.

He was, Sherlock decided, never going to let that happen.

 

\--

 

As the sky above darkened to a deeper grey, Sherlock pulled the door of the Technological Development Centre closed behind him and walked to where his bicycle was leaning on its rack. He wheeled it out and swung a leg over, feeling satisfied with a long day’s worth of hard work. The pride from the promising results of his experiment burst, however, when he passed behind the House of the Old and remembered his mother’s story from the previous day. He glanced at the unmarked door set in the shadows of the back wall, so unremarkable and out of the way that he had never noticed it before – strange, since in the past twelve years of his life, Sherlock had taken it upon himself to explore every part of the Community. He knew this was where John’s training took place, however, because the other boy’s bicycle was still there, sitting up neatly in the rack.

Sherlock stepped from his bike and wheeled it to the rack beside John’s, where the two bicycles stood together with their glinting name plates the way they had countless times before. Sherlock sat down on the pavement beside them and settled in to wait.

It wasn’t long before the door he was watching opened and a short, familiar figure stepped out. Sherlock frowned as he noticed the way John slumped his shoulders forward, instead of maintaining the perfectly straight posture they had been taught as children. John rubbed his eyes and kept them on the ground, not seeing Sherlock until he had almost bumped into him.

“What are you doing here?”

There was something hard and annoyed in his voice, and Sherlock forced himself not to flinch at the sound of it.

“What have _you_ been doing?” He demanded instead.

“Training,” John snapped, “as you obviously know since you’ve been following me.”

Sherlock didn’t do well with John’s anger at the best of times, and now, after weeks of silence, John’s outburst felt like one rejection too many.

“Right, _training,_ ” he sneered. “What do you even do, anyway? ‘The Receiver of Memories.’ How cute. Do you sit around talking about your _feelings_ and laugh about how much better you are than the rest of us?”

Even as he said the words, Sherlock knew that they were a mistake, that he didn’t really mean them, but he wasn’t prepared for the way that John’s face completely changed into something cold and hard and completely unrecognizable.

“You have no idea,” John said, his voice deadly quiet and carefully controlled, but Sherlock could hear the rage simmering just under the surface. This was a side of John that Sherlock had never encountered in all the years they had known each other, in any of the squabbles they had had. “None of you know _anything_ about what the world’s actually like. Nobody ever thinks to ask why we need a Receiver. Because nobody actually cares, as long as you can keep living your stupid, pointless lives. So don’t you _dare_ make fun of me.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to reply, to scoff at the idea that John was accusing _him,_ of all people, of not knowing anything, but John cut him off before he could speak.

“Don’t,” he said, eyes glinting and fists tightened, before walking away.

 

\--

 

That night, as he sat through dinner and the sharing of feelings, then stared at the blank paper of his school assignment, Sherlock’s thoughts kept circling back to the argument with John. Part of him was still furious. It was John who had basically ignored him for weeks, then snapped at Sherlock when he sought him out. But this time, more than ever, Sherlock couldn’t stand to stay angry at John, especially as he recalled the icily furious way John had bitten out his words. It made him feel like he had done something wrong, even though he refused to regret his earlier words as anything worse than a deserved response to John’s behaviour.

The thoughts kept Sherlock up for hours, long after he had crawled into bed and the lights had been shut. As always, Sherlock couldn’t stand knowing that John was mad at him, despite the protest his pride put up against the admission. Finally, as he watched the clock by his bed tick towards midnight, Sherlock made his decision and pulled himself up from the mess of his blankets.

Holding his shoes, Sherlock crept as quietly as he could down the stairs of the silent house. He carefully pulled open the front door of the house and slipped through, pausing before closing it again to make sure that no sound came from his parents stirring in their bedroom. Stepping out into the night, he took a moment to look up and down the street and notice how different the Community looked, empty and dark except for the yellowish streetlights. It had been years since he had sneaked out of the house at night, unwilling to sleep and wanting to explore without anyone watching over his shoulders and telling him what he couldn’t do.

Now, Sherlock took the familiar path to John’s house, the next street over from his. He only knew where it was because of the times he had raced to his friend’s house, sitting on the lawn and impatiently waiting for John to get ready so they could go play. While all the land and buildings in the Community belonged to everybody, it was impolite to enter someone else’s home. Sherlock had never been inside John’s house, but he guessed that it was similar to his own since it, like all the family homes in the Community, looked the same from the outside. Creeping into the backyard, Sherlock found the window that opened into his own bedroom in his house. Glancing around, he looked at the drain pipe leading to the second floor and the first-floor windowsills that he could use as toeholds. Taking a deep breath and telling himself that it wasn’t that different from climbing a tree, Sherlock heaved himself up and shakily made his way to the window.

Sherlock knocked on the glass, and the lump of blankets on the narrow bed startled immediately and looked up. Apparently, John hadn’t been able to sleep either. Sherlock readied himself for more of John’s silent glares, mentally preparing the arguments for why he should be let in. To his surprise, John pushed open the window without a word and stepped aside to give Sherlock room to crawl inside. He had at least expected a token protest about all the rules Sherlock was breaking.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock blurted out before he could lose his nerve, hoping that John could hear the difference between his words and the trivial everyday apologies and recognize his sincerity.

John sat back down on his bed and sighed. “Me too,” he said, “I wasn’t being very nice either.”

For a few moments, the two boys sat quietly in the dark. Sherlock realized that John had uncharacteristically skipped the standard phrase of acceptance of his apology, but he nonetheless felt forgiven anyway. After a while of staring at the wooden panels of the bedroom floor, Sherlock lifted his head to look at John.

“Earlier, you said I didn’t know anything. What was it that I didn’t know?”

The black outline of John’s body stiffened at the question. “I can’t tell you,” he said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, a habit he still hadn’t quit even after years of being told how rude it was. He wasn’t sure if John could see the action in the dark, but he was sure that John knew him well enough to guess. “I thought you were frustrated that nobody understood. They can’t if you don’t tell them, can they?”

He could hear the rattling of John’s breaths, in and out, as he considered what Sherlock said. “I just can’t. It’s against the rules,” he finally whispered.

“So is this, and you’re not kicking me out.”

John shook his head. “No, this is much worse.”

Sherlock hesitated, then said, “If I tell you my secret, will you tell me yours?” After all, he had been planning to talk to John about it anyway.

“It doesn’t work like that,” John replied with an exasperated huff. Sherlock was pleased to hear that he was using the tone he used to speak in when Sherlock had done something he wasn’t supposed to. Good, he thought, and forged ahead.

“Sometimes I see things, or hear things. It’s been happening for a few months now, since just before the Ceremony,” Sherlock began, and went on to outline the unnerving instances. After a while, as he talked, he noticed that John was staring at him, his eyes wide and highlighted with reflected light. He let his voice trail off, wondering if John was about to tell him he was going insane.

Instead, John said, “I know what’s happening to you. It happened to me, too.”

Suddenly, Sherlock felt his heart jump in his chest. He wasn’t sure if what he felt was nervousness or relief, but he knew of one thing he wanted for certain. “Tell me. Tell me everything.”

And John did.

 

\--

 

As John started talking, he found that he couldn’t stop. He was like a bottle that had been tipped over, and now the water wouldn’t stop flowing out. He hadn’t realized before just how much he wanted to have his best friend back, to have someone that he could tell his every thought to.

He told Sherlock about the Giver, about the Memories, about colours and music. He told him about what he had learned about the world before Sameness, about why a Receiver was needed, about both the joy and pain of the Memories. Sherlock listened wide-eyed and, for once, didn’t interrupt every few seconds with his questions. It was only when John reached the end of his story and his words trickled to a stop that Sherlock spoke.

“Show me,” he whispered.

John hesitated for only a moment. He was pretty certain that he could. After all, the Giver herself had said that Sherlock would be able to Receive. As for the rules – he had broken enough of them already tonight; what was one more? Besides, he realized that he had wanted to show someone the Memories for a long time. He remembered the wonder he felt when the Giver first pressed her fingers to his back and showed him this other world, and wanted to see the same excitement in Sherlock’s eyes.

“Okay,” he said quietly, gesturing for Sherlock to lie down on the bed and take off his tunic. Carefully, as he had seen the Giver do so many times before, he placed his hands on Sherlock’s back and called up the Memory in his mind.

_The Memory he decided to give to Sherlock was one of a concert, with a group of neatly dressed performers seated at the front of a huge and beautifully decorated auditorium. The bright light shining down from above the stage reflected off the glossy wood of the stringed instruments and the metals of the brass and woodwinds. A woman, tall and pretty and dressed in a flowing green dress, stood in front of the other musicians, a violin grasped in one hand and tucked under her chin._

Dimly, John was aware of the dark of his bedroom and Sherlock’s warm skin under his fingertips. He could even see Sherlock’s lips curled in a smile where his face peeked out from the rumpled bedsheets. Together, the two boys sat in the stillness as they listened to the performers play through movement after movement, the music almost like a physical creature as it reached out and pulled out feelings of wonder and sadness from their chests. Finally, the lead violinist pulled off with a flourish of her bow, and silence settled over them once again.

Sherlock opened his eyes and sat up. “That was amazing,” he said breathlessly, so different from his usual expressions of boredom and impatience.

John grinned. He felt much lighter than he had earlier that day – than he had been for weeks, really. He was _happy_. The feeling stayed with him throughout the night, even after Sherlock snuck out to go back to his own house, and he settled into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock just wants to know.

Sherlock woke to the voice of the Speaker, sounding through every street and dwelling of the Community.

"Good morning, citizens," he greeted. His gentle voice was soothing over the pounding of Sherlock's heart.

He tried to close his eyes and return to the bright colours of his dreams, but the bits and pieces seemed to slip through his fingers even as he desperated grabbed at them. All he was left with was the flash of neon colours against a dark night sky and the sound of giddy, gasping laughter.

"Sherlock!" his mother's voice floated up the stairs, "are you up yet?"

Sherlock groaned and pushed himself up from the bed. The start of another day, he thought, as he walked into the bathroom, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

Until recently, Sherlock hadn't known what exhaustion was. There was no such thing in the Community - everyone slept for the scheduled amount of time, and was alloted the amount of work they were able to do. However, Sherlock had been finding himself unable to fall asleep lately, lying awake long into the night as the world outside quieted to the sparse, muffled footsteps of the night-crew. In his mind, Sherlock relived the Memories that John now shared with him regularly, turning them around and around in his head until he was sure he had noticed every little detail, gleaned as much information as he could from this other world.

At least you don't have to go to school anymore, Sherlock told himself as he dunked his face under the faucet, trying to blink himself awake. That was definitely a plus, finally being free from the stifling tedium of lessons and spending his days instead at the Technological Development Centre. Except it wasn't as exciting as he had thought months ago - but Sherlock didn't let himself think too hard about that. He loved his Assignment, after all, loved the experiments and getting to learn new things every day.

 

\--

 

"Why did they get rid of the colours?" Sherlock asked, looking out at the field below them, now dotted with the little running figures of another class of children.

"Hm?" John turned to him from his spot on the opposite branch.

"Why would they get rid of the colours? Why go to so much trouble?"

John shrugged. "The Giver said it gave people too many choices. 'Red tunic or blue,' you know? Creating conflict and making people worried when it doesn't even really matter. They're all just tunics."

Sherlock thought about this for a minute. "I suppose. But you lose so many other things, too. How could someone know about sunsets and oceans and decide to give them up?"

When John turned to look at him, his jaw was set in a hard line and his eyes seemed darker than usual. "If they are the price for the life we have, then so be it."

Sherlock looked at his friend in surprise. "You _like_ the way life is now?"

"Compared to the way things used to be? Yes."

Sherlock huffed in frustration. The calm, monotonous way John was speaking made his hackles rise. "Are you like everybody else now? You always pretend there's nothing different about you, but I know you get bored. No matter how much you protest, you always end up doing things my way."

"I'm not a child anymore, Sherlock!" John snapped. "You always think you know everything. Grow up! Don't you see there are things you don't know about? And trust me, you really don't want to know them."

Sherlock turned away to stare at the children below, now lining up and heading back to class. Back to lessons of dry facts and simple equations, not even knowing that there was more to the world. "Hm," was his only response.

 

\--

 

"And this is the engine," Moira said, pointing at the large cylindrical piece of metal sitting on a stand in the workroom, ready to be fitted into its casing.

Sherlock walked in closer to peer at the blades and examine the linkages of the component parts.

"This is one of our fastest models. It goes up to 1000 km/h. We don't use it much, of course. It's only for emergencies. You don't need anything this fast for food distribution and the like."

Sherlock nodded. "How high up do they go, generally?"

"About 5000, 6000 metres for the short flights. They can go up to around 10,000 metres, but that doesn't happen often."

Sherlock thought about this for a moment, recalling what he knew about the atmosphere. "Could you make them go higher? I mean, is it possible to build an engine that can do that?"

Moira frowned. "I'm not sure. Anyway, airplanes aren't really a target for technological development anymore, they already do their jobs quite well. For your Assignment, you'll just need to know how they function."

"Right, I know," Sherlock replied. "But _can_ you make them fly higher?" he persisted.

The older female looked at him, confused. "Why would we want to do that?"

 

\--

 

That night, lying in bed after the lights were shut off, Sherlock remembered the questions he had as a child. He had been obsessed about what existed in the skies; when he had first learned that the Earth was a sphere, he had pestered all the adults asking what laid outside of it.

"Space," was their indifferent, exasperated reply, time after time, and "stop asking irrelevant questions, Sherlock."

They didn't answer his questions about what space was, or what the Sun was made of and what it looked like. They didn't seem to care that there was this huge, unknown area just outside of their world that nobody had ever been to.

Except somebody had, Sherlock now knew. John had shown him grainy images of astronauts stepping onto other worlds, and unmanned spacecrafts hurtling towards distant planets. But they had given that up, too, when they went to Sameness. After all, there was no reason to waste time and resources thinking about something that doesn't contribute to a peaceful, orderly society.

But that meant Sherlock wasn't the only person who had ever wondered, the only one whose thoughts got caught on something and refused to let go. He had always been told he was impractical and inpertinent, and had felt alone in the way his thoughts rushed through his head and made him ask _why_. Now, Sherlock realized that no matter what his parents and Instructors said, there was nothing wrong with him.

"Psst, Sherlock!"

Sherlock jolted out of his thoughts and looked to the source of the whisper. John was crouching on the other side of his window, grabbing precariously to the window frames and looking like he could fall at any moment, but grinning widely anyway. Sherlock felt an answering grin creeping onto his own face, and attempted to cover it up with a scowl and a huff.

"Your attempts at stealth need some work," he said, shoving open his window to let John through.

"Shut up," John said cheerfully as he stepped inside. "Sorry I couldn't meet you earlier, the Giver kept me late today."

Sherlock shrugged, going back to lay on his bed. John perched on the nightstand, and Sherlock looked at him out the corner of his eye.

"All right, what's got you all excited?"

"The Giver showed me something today. A new feeling."

"Oh?"

"It's called accomplishment. You know when you finish a school assignment and know you did really well? It's like that, but better, because you know only you could have done it and you did something really important."

"What did she show you? In the Memory?"

"She showed me what it was like to be a Doctor, before. What it feels like to _save a life._ "

Sherlock sat up and really looked at his friend. Even in the near-total darkness, with only the faint glow of the few streetlights in the Community, he could see the pink, happy glow on John's cheeks. His eyes were opened wide and shining in a way Sherlock had never seen before, not just on John but anyone he had met, and he was swinging his legs happily where they dangled off the nightstand.

"And not only that, she told me more about what a Receiver does, about what she has done for our Community and other ones in the past. How we're the only ones who can make those decisions and make sure everything is working the way it's supposed to, because we're the only ones who _know_."

After this pronouncement, John jumped off the nightstand and settled on the bed as well, eyes closed and smiling contentedly. He didn't notice Sherlock staring at him, his words echoing through the other boy's head.

_"We're the only ones who know."_

 

\--

 

From that day on, the limitations in the Community suddenly became glaringly obvious: all the things that Sherlock didn't know, the things that he wasn't allowed to know, and the things that nobody else even seemed to want to know. The way that Sherlock was only allowed to perform experiments his mentors prepared for him, and never any of his own design. The way that only Instructors could ask questions of students in class, and never the other way around. The way that the children were taught that it was impolite to enter another person's dwelling or workplace, so that no one ever went anywhere they weren't supposed to. Even the little things irritated him now: the stiff ritual of apologies and acceptances thereof, the sharing of feelings and dreams, even the pills that he and every adult of the Community are required to take every morning, which he had accepted without question. Sherlock hated the thought of it; what else had he done over the years without thinking? The world around him began to feel more and more like a dream - fake and hazy, as if it were constructed like the tiny model Communities the children played with, and not reality. Once he had begun to see in colour, the greyscale of the buildings and furniture and clothing had been grating on him and wearing down his thoughts and energy.

John was right - only the Elders in the Community really _knew_. While everyone else knew what the rules were, only the Elders knew what they were for. And you could only become an Elder after being Assigned to their office and working for them for years and years, as Maya was doing.

And then there was the Receiver of Memories. Soon, in a few years, John will officially be the Receiver. He will be an Elder even though he will barely be an adult, and he will know the most out of them all. Briefly, Sherlock wondered why it was John who was chosen. John had told him that not everyone could Receive, but evidently Sherlock could as well. For the first time, Sherlock thought that it was unfair that it was the Elders who chose what kind of life everyone led. That they chose who got to know what.

Would it be better, then, if everyone was able to choose their own Assignments like in the old days - their jobs, as they were called? Not everyone would get it right, of course; in fact, plenty of people wouldn't know what to do. They would be unhappy and their abilities would be wasted. After all, that's what they had always been told, about how ridiculous the old ways of life had once been. The Elders were wise, they wanted the best for the Community, and they always knew what was the right thing to do.

But if you could make your own decisions, then it was your own fault if you didn't get it right, and you would know that you tried. You could do things that nobody had ever imagined you would - and Sherlock was doubting that someone else could know you better than yourself, no matter how clever and wise they were. They couldn't be inside your head, and there could be so much more to a person than what they showed to others - so much more they could be if they were allowed to ask questions and to know and to want. _Just how much more could he be?_ Sherlock was starting to wonder more and more, his thoughts circling back to the question time and again.

Sherlock barely slept at all that night, laying in the dark while his thoughts twisted and leapt and spun around on themselves. He spent the night pulling together the fragments of Memories and bits of knowledge he had about the world before Sameness, trying to place himself in them and wondering what he could be, in another world. Sometimes, the possibilites seemed so vivid that he felt like he could reach out and touch them, that he could make them real if he just wished hard enough.

 

\--

 

Sherlock sat at his desk at the Centre for Technological Development with a book on aircraft mechanics, but was finding it hard to concentrate. The words on the page were running together in his head, and he found himself reading the same sentences again and again without processing a single word.

The small, neatly bound pages of small print were unremarkable, with a blank cover and some simple diagrams strewn throughout, but it was an object that few people in the Community knew existed. Before his Assignment, the only book he had seen - had ever known there to be - was the book of rules that was found in every dwelling. Even his school readings had been on loose sheets of paper, only given out in time for the corresponding lesson.

He had seen books in the Memories - in homes, at schools, in rows upon rows in vast libraries. John had told him about the books in the Giver's dwelling, and now Sherlock knew there had to be a library in the Centre for Technological Development as well. Books weren't gone - the Elders didn't want to destroy knowledge - their only concern was who had access to them and, by extension, the ability to think and dream beyond the world they knew.

Beyond, Sherlock thought, staring at the peachy tint of his palms which stood in stark contrast to the black-and-white of the room around him. It made sense, he supposed, why that was what they called it, what he and John and the Giver could do - seeing and hearing beyond. He didn't know how John and all the Receivers before him could do it, how they could know what laid beyond then open their eyes and go back to living in their monochrome lives.

That night, Sherlock stayed at the Centre for as long as possible, pretending to have lost track of time as he read. Finally, when everyone else had left except for Moira and him, his mentor came up to him at his desk.

"I'm sorry Sherlock, but I really have to put the book back before tonight. You can look at it again tomorrow."

Sherlock startled, as if he had been surprised by her approaching. "Oh, I didn't realize it was already so late," he said sheepishly. "I apologize for making you stay for so long."

"I accept your apology," Moira replied, smiling. "I'm happy that you like your Assignment so much."

Sherlock smiled back at her, feeling the corners of his lips tugging uncomfortably. He gathered his things, said goodbye, and made his way towards the exit of the building. Once he was out of her sight, however, he stepped into a corner and took off his shoes. After a moment, Moira walked out of the room with the book in her hands. Sherlock's socked feet were quiet on the tiled floor as he followed after her.

Sherlock followed Moira down corridor after corridor, until they passed into an area of the Centre he had never been in before. She stopped in front of a narrow door that said "Supplies" in neat letters etched onto a skinny plaque. To his surprise, she turned to the fire alarm latch beside the door and flipped it up to reveal a number pad. She looked around and Sherlock held his breath as he drew his head back from where he had been peeking around the corner. Finally, he heard four beeps followed by another in a higher pitch and the soft click of a lock being opened. When he heard the sound of Moira stepping into the room, Sherlock tiptoed out of his hiding spot and, with a glance at the slightly open door, walked as quickly and quietly as he could to the corner at the other end of the corridor.

Sherlock pressed himself against the wall of the second corridor. The Centre is silent now that all of its staff had returned to their dwellings for the night, and the only sound Sherlock could hear was the pounding of his own heart. It was thundering so loudly that he thought Moira could hear it all the way from inside the room. He had never been a model citizen, had spent his childhood breaking more rules than anyone in his year - maybe in the entire Community - but he knew this was something different. If he was caught, it wouldn't just be a chastisement or the tap of a discipline wand, especially now that he was supposed to be an adult.

The possibilities behind the small, nondescript door, however, were much more interesting than his fear of the consequences. Moira walked back into the hallway then, and to Sherlock's relief, walked back the way they had come. When her light steps finally faded away, Sherlock left his hiding place and approached the door with the hidden lock. Flipping open the fake fire alarm latch, he stared at the numbers underneath, the black print standing out sharply against the silver of the keys.

For a moment, Sherlock faltered. Perhaps he should just leave now. He didn't know the code anyway, and he could still leave without anyone knowing what he had almost done. Even if he ran into Moira as he exited the building, he could just say that he had forgotten something and came back to get it. He felt a sense of relief at the idea and a part of him wanted to seize at it and run.

As he stood staring at the number pad, however, Sherlock realized that one of the keys seemed a bit more worn out than the others and his mind began spinning with the possibilities. This number, 1, must be part of the code then. Perhaps it was repeated - or perhaps it was the first number in the series. The oil from the fingers would collect on the first key, wouldn't it? He leaned in closer to examine the keys, and realized that the 0 was slightly worn as well, but it was impossible to know what place it was in the code.

Sherlock frowned. 1-0. 1-0-something. 1-something-0? Moira had a son, didn't she? A ten. And a daughter too, he remembered. A six? The code was four numbers, he knew that much. Could it be...?

Taking a deep breath, Sherlock carefully typed the combination into the keypad. 1-0-0-6. The few heart-stopping moments he waited seemed to take forever, and Sherlock began to wonder if someone would be notified if a wrong code was entered. Then a beep sounded. Dizzy with relief and a strange, giddy swooping feeling in his chest, Sherlock reached out to push open the door.

The room inside was not large, not like any of the libraries he had seen in the Memories. There were no high ceilings or spiralling staircases. It was just a simple room like any other, except that the walls were completely covered by shiny aluminum shelves, most of which were filled with books. Sherlock carefully closed the door behind him and walked up to the nearest shelf, staring in awe at the spines with careful lettering. Some, he realized, were even in colour!

Sherlock pulled out a book and flipped it open. The words and diagrams spilled out at him, and he was suddenly hit with the realization of how much information was contained in this one room - more than all they had learned in their years at school, maybe more than what every person in the Community knew. Every book was a little package of words and ideas and knowledge about the world, and there must be hundreds of them in this room!

Just then, Sherlock heard a noise behind him. Instinctively, he tucked the book he was holding - a small one with the words "pocket handbook" across the cover - into his tunic and turned around. He looked for a place to hide, but there were no other exits and no furniture in the room. Desperately, he watched as the doorknob turned and the crack of the hinges roared like thunder in the silent building.


End file.
